Cuomo: Probe school district claims

Updated 7:36 pm, Friday, November 8, 2013

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo has told the state police and state Division of Human Rights to investigate allegations of anti-Semitic harassment at a Hudson Valley school district raised in a lawsuit.

Cuomo also says he expects state education officials to tell parents what they knew and have done about the allegations at the Pine Bush Central School District. They include swastikas drawn and left on school property, anti-Semitic slurs, one Jewish student beaten with a hockey stick and another having a swastika forcibly drawn on her face.

He says the stories, reported Friday by the New York Times, are "deeply disturbing" if true.

The district says it takes discrimination seriously, enforces anti-harassment policies and believes its actions will be vindicated.

An education department official says they share Cuomo's "revulsion," only learned of the allegations Friday and will inform the public.